By Chris Williams: Juan Manuel Marquez says he has no interest in facing WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a rematch, according to Mexican news site oem.com.mx. Marquez, 39, fought Mayweather in 2009 and lost a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to the bigger and faster fighter. Marquez still hasn’t decided whether to continue his career or not. His family still wants him to retire without ever fighting again, but he’s still undecided.
If Marquez does continue his boxing career it’ll only be for one more fight, he says, and it won’t be in the United States due to the high taxes that is taken out of his purse. Marquez complains that he loses 30% of his purse when he fights in the U.S, and after paying management and other people on his team, he winds up with half of his original purse.
It’s possible Marquez could come back for a final fight, at least that’s the impression I’m getting from him. If he’s complaining about having half or more of his purse taken by the U.S government in the form of taxes then that gives you a pretty good hint that he’s thinking about getting as much money as possible before he gets out of the sport.
As far as a fifth fight against Manny Pacquiao goes, Marquez didn’t mention having any interest in fighting him again but you can bet that if Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum throws a big number at him he’ll likely say yes.
Marquez needs to do some market research before he starts negotiations with Arum for a fifth fight. If Marquez can show Arum that his Mexican fans are the ones that are accounting for most of the pay per view numbers for his fights with Pacquiao, then he’ll likely get a better deal. But Marquez shouldn’t accept a low purse split given the success of his last two fights with Pacquiao.
We saw Pacquiao bring in much lower PPV numbers against Joshua Clottey and Tim Bradley, and that tells you that Pacquiao can’t bring in the big numbers alone. He needs a star like Marquez to get his PPV buys to the 1 million mark.
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